Yeah, yeah, sorry if I didn't make myself clear, I realise your position, which, I think, is the same as my own!
Yes, of course they are, I think we're all in agreement on that. As I understand it, S'sCat is just saying they understand the RFU's reasons for taking the position, not that they agree with them (pretty sure that's it).
Yes, that’s what I was meaning! I knew we were agreeing, I just felt I needed to say again as I thought I wasn’t being clear! :-)
This is obviously a sensitive topic and I’m not always great at expressing my opinions properly - I’d be very upset if a trans person read this and thought that I was advocating restrictions being placed on them.
I'm sorry, but the height and weight restrictions are still bullshit. Most of the players I listed are only an inch (2.54cm) over the height restriction. Does a trans woman have an automatic advantage if she's 171cm tall and 90.1kg? Either have height and weight restrictions for everybody or not at all.
Yes they are. And no they don’t. However, if you are going to have height/weight restrictions then they have to be absolute - there needs to be an arbitrary number, and anything over that is disqualified (if you set a minimum height for a fairground ride, it doesn’t matter if you are only 1cm below that, you can’t go on the ride). And I can see if you are going to do that, then setting it at the 90th percentile would look a reasonable compromise. Also, if someone is over the height/weight limits, they can still play. They just need to be assessed to determine if they are at a “material advantage“ before they can (whatever that would be, and however that would be assessed?).
However, however, your first sentence I agree with entirely - doesn’t really matter what the limits are, having them in the first place is wrong. As said before by
Gobbers above, it is dehumanising, and it treats trans women as not really women. Which for me is a red line not to be crossed. The only eventuality I can see restrictions being reasonable is in the event of a top level professional transitioning. E.G. Billy Vunipola (or whoever) stating tomorrow that they are trans and identify as a woman, but has not yet started any medical interventions, probably shouldn’t be allowed to play in the women’s game the following weekend. But I can’t help but feel that such an occurrence is so unlikely as to not really be a worthwhile discussion and to be filed under ‘cross that bridge when we come to it’.
I know that the women’s team at my club have played both with and against trans players and had no problem with it. At the time the only requirements were that the players in the league were asked if anyone had any objections. No one did, and so they played on as normal. As it should be.
